Why It’s Crucial To Humanize Your Brand in the Age of AI [+ 12 Ways To Do It]

With increased adoption of smart technology, AI, and automation, brands have the opportunity to accomplish more faster—potentially outperforming even their wildest dreams. But with greater reliance on Generative AI comes one big problem: it’s all too easy for brands to start sounding more like bots than humans.

While technology is transforming the way we connect with customers, that doesn’t mean the need for genuine human connection is gone. 

In fact, people crave meaningful connection more than ever. Consumers aren’t just searching for products and services anymore; they want brand experiences that feel real, reflect their values, and offer a sense of belonging. 

Sure, AI serves up efficiency and scale faster than a robot throwing back shots of espresso, but the true magic happens when a brand keeps its human spark alive. In a world where anyone can crank out content at record speed, it’s that uniquely human touch that wins hearts and builds loyal fans.

Humanizing your brand is no longer a nice-to-have: it’s essential for survival and success in today’s ever-evolving marketplace. 

In this blog, you’ll learn what it means to humanize your brand in the age of AI, why it’s so crucial to success, and 12 ways to infuse more humanity into your marketing.

What Does “Humanize Your Brand” Mean?

According to Entrepreneur.com, the definition of “branding” is:

“The marketing practice of creating a name, symbol, or design that identifies and differentiates a product from other products.” 

“Differentiates a product from other products” is the key phrase here. If you don’t find a way to set yourself apart from your competition, two things happen: 1) Your products and services are simply seen as commodities; and 2) You’ll end up competing on price, because if there is no apparent difference between your product/service and your competitors’, consumers will typically choose the most affordable option.

According to Merriam-Webster, “humanize” can mean several things, including:

• To make (something) humane or civilized
• To represent (something) as human; to attribute human qualities to (something)

So when we combine the definitions of “branding” and “humanizing,” we get this definition:

Why Humanize Your Brand? One Word: Connection

People are hard-wired for connection. It’s a basic human need that is essential to our overall health and well-being. While AI can be a great tool for improving productivity and enhancing your marketing, it can’t replicate the most important aspect of marketing your business: building a human connection.

Whether you’re a B2C or B2B business, you’re trying to reach other humans to show them how your business can solve their problems or make their lives or their work better. And people do business with people they know, like, and trust. That means you need marketing that resonates with your audience and creates a true human connection.

The answer: Humanize your brand.

At the same time that you’re adopting more automation and Generative AI in your work, you should also be working to maintain a human element in your brand. 

After all, the brands that stand out in the age of AI won’t be the ones pumping out tons of perfectly polished automated content. They’ll be the ones that retain a sense of real, authentic humanity in their marketing.

12 Ways To Humanize Your Brand in the Age of AI

1. Use AI as a Partner, Not a Replacement

First off, you don’t have to completely do away with AI to humanize your brand. In fact, handing over some of your tasks to AI can give you more time and energy to spend on creativity and connection. It’s all about knowing which tasks to give to AI and which need a human touch.

The goal here isn’t to replace yourself with AI—it’s to use AI as a partner in your work.

For example, you could let a Generative AI like ChatGPT write all your blogs, social posts, and emails…but those elements won’t be nearly as effective without your creative touch. Instead, use those tools to refine and polish your own ideas. 

Or, take the output from your AI tool and work in your own perspective and creative ideas before hitting “post.” Prime example: I used Perplexity.ai to draft the intro to this blog. But then I took my editing pen to that draft, cutting, rearranging, rewording, and ultimately shaping it into something entirely my own. In this way, AI can be a great tool to re-charge your creativity when it starts to wane.

If you want to stand out in the age of AI, you can’t rely on AI tools alone. You have to infuse your unique voice, your perspective, and even your quirks (a.k.a., your humanity) into your brand.

Learn more about the pros and cons of using AI to write content.

2. Focus on Customer Needs and Pain Points

Rather than using your content to push another sales pitch or go over product features, focus on your customers’ needs and how you’ll help meet them.

In other words, your content should be focused on your ideal customer or client…not on yourself. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t promote your products or services—you should!—it simply means that you’ll highlight how your products or services will make your prospects’ lives better, rather than only talking about how great you are or how much better you are than the competition.

It can be a fine line sometimes, but it’s an important distinction. Your customer should be the primary focus of your marketing.

3. Offer a Unique Point of View

One of the easiest ways to stand out from the crowd is to offer a unique, authentic point of view. In a sea of sameness, sharing your perspectives, expertise, and opinions will add color to your content and draw your audience to engage with you.

Work to establish a clear brand voice that reflects your company’s personality and values, and use that voice consistently throughout all your platforms, including email, website, and social media. When someone sees a social post or gets an email from you, they should be able to immediately recognize your brand voice…even before they realize who is behind the post or email!

4. Showcase the People Behind Your Brand

Even if AI helps you ramp up productivity, your people are still your greatest assets. They form the core of who you are as a company. 

To bring an extra dose of humanity into your social media, blog, and email content, highlight your employees using:

• “Meet the team” posts or articles, where you highlight a team member and share a little about them.
• Personal stories from your team, whether it’s a story about your product or service, a customer they interacted with, or something personal that ties into your messaging.
• “Behind-the-scenes” posts and videos showing your experts at work.
• Videos or articles about your process, what you do, and how it’s unique, with quotes from your team members.

And don’t forget to use images! Incorporating the faces of your team members into your marketing can help build familiarity and trust, helping your clients and prospects feel more connected to your company.

5. Drop the Jargon

Your marketing should feel like you’re having a conversation with your audience…not giving them a power point presentation.

Write the way your audience speaks in your blog posts, emails, videos, social media captions, and so on. This kind of conversational language helps your audience feel like you are talking directly to them…and it invites them to talk back! 

The goal of your marketing is to start a conversation that leads to building a long-term customer relationship (honestly, it’s not unlike dating or making new friends in that way). So drop the complicated jargon and instead opt for a friendly, conversational tone in your marketing.

6. Highlight Your Company Values and Culture

Today’s consumers want transparency from the brands they support. They want to know who you are and what your business stands for. And they’re more likely to support brands that feel authentic and share their values.

When you show your personality and values in your marketing, it helps you:

• Make a deeper connection with customers and prospects
• Build consumer trust
• Stand out in a crowded market
• Encourage engagement from your audience
• Increase word-of-mouth 

To share your company culture and values, make sure to incorporate personal elements, like photos of you and your team, personal stories, and other items that show how your team lives your values every day.

Learn more about infusing your company culture into your marketing.

7. Respond Personally to Customers

And not only customers—prospects too! When you get:

• Emails
• Comments on blogs
• Social media post comments and direct messages
• Support tickets
• Reviews (good and bad!)

…respond to each and every one personally. Don’t leave this task to AI! 

If the whole point of your marketing is to start a conversation and build relationships, you need to keep that conversation going with personalized responses. People won’t remember every marketing campaign you do, but they’ll remember how you respond to their messages.

8. Embrace Storytelling

Tell stories with your content. Data may convince someone to make a decision, but a story will spark an emotional connection with them. And that emotional connection is what will create brand loyalty.

Include personal stories and experiences from your team, your customers, and even from books or other media you’ve been reading or listening to (just be sure to give proper credit). This can look like:

• Customer success stories
• Case studies
• Interviews
• Guest posts
• Quotes
• Behind-the-scenes moments
• Stories of personal or professional struggles you’ve overcome

Stories build empathy and trust with your audience, which makes them want to know more about you and your company. So don’t hold back—tell your story!

Learn more about brand storytelling.

9. Share Your Expertise

One sure-fire way to stand out from all the AI-written content online is to share your company’s expertise. You can do this through blogs, videos, social posts, and emails that share your team members’ expertise and first-hand experience.

One of the biggest goals of digital marketing is to offer helpful content from a trustworthy source. Interview your internal experts, diving deep into their knowledge on subjects that are relevant to your industry and helpful to potential customers. Ask them informed questions and share their insights.

From one interview, you can create a blog post (or series of blogs), multiple social media posts, and even some sales enablement materials. If you record the interview, you can also pull video clips for social media or even create a podcast!

Once you’ve created this content, encourage your team members to share these posts with their followers on social media. Not only will this further promote your company, it will also help them build their personal brand.

10. Offer Social Proof

Social proof is another thing AI can’t replicate. “Social proof” in a marketing context refers to evidence that others have found value in your product or service. This can come in the form of:

• Reviews
• Customer testimonials
• Case studies
• User-generated content
• Endorsements from well-known people in your industry

People are not as easily swayed by flashy advertising as they used to be. Instead, today’s consumers want to hear what others like them have to say about your products, services, and company as a whole. Sharing social proof will bring prospects one step closer to becoming clients.

11. Incorporate Photos & Videos

In this day and age, it’s tough to get any traction online without using photos and videos in your content (especially videos!). That’s why you should always include images in your content—especially those that best represent who you are and the clients you’re trying to attract.

When it comes to creating videos, you don’t need to be a pro. Smartphone videos will do just fine—in fact, they might help you appear more authentic. In addition to sharing videos on social media, make sure to add them to your top-performing blogs as an intro or overview of the blog's main points (like we did in this blog).

And don’t be afraid to enlist the help of AI for this job:

• Use an AI video editor to put your video together and polish it up.
• Paste your blog copy into ChatGPT or another Gen AI tool and ask it to create a script for a video summary. (Just make sure to edit it to reflect your brand voice.)

Just getting started with video and need some more tips and inspo? Check out these blogs:

• 6 Reasons You Need To Use Video on Your Website (Plus 4 Types of Videos To Try!)

• Just for Fun: 8 Funny Social Media Video Ideas for Your Business

12. StoryBrand Your Website

One of the ways we maintain a human touch on our website (and our clients’ websites) is by using the StoryBrand framework to outline our messaging.

If you’re not familiar, the StoryBrand framework is a marketing framework that uses the power of storytelling to help businesses connect with potential customers by empathizing with their journey and goals. Instead of making you the hero of the story, it posits your customer as the hero…and you as the wise guide that leads them to success.

Just from the definition, I think you can see how StoryBrand can help you tell your story and quickly connect with website visitors. As Donald Miller, creator of StoryBrand, says, “A message isn’t just words. It’s the person saying it, why they’re saying it, and who they’re saying it to, and it’s the background you have with that person that makes it so meaningful.”

Great marketing is so much more than words: it’s a means of connection. Using the StoryBrand framework helps you create great marketing that humanizes your brand, helps you stand out from the crowd, and connects you with your audience.

Learn how to build a homepage that works with StoryBrand.

Humanizing Your Brand = Your Best Competitive Advantage

In an increasingly automated world, a human touch is your best competitive advantage. When you prioritize authenticity, center your messaging on your customer, and harness the unique perspectives and experiences of your team, you can create content that does more than grab attention: it will resonate deeply with your audience for a lasting impact.

If you’d like more insight into how to humanize your brand in the age of AI, the Wild Fig team and I would love to use our expertise for your benefit. Schedule a discovery call to learn how we can help!